Grand Rounds discussion to focus on ‘ObamaCare’

Since this story was published, the Feb. 14 Grand Rounds on
"ObamaCare" has been postponed. The UB Reporter will publish the
new date and time for the session when it is rescheduled.

“It’s going to change everyone’s career and no
one is quite sure what will happen.”

That’s how Philip L. Glick, vice chair of surgery and
professor of surgery, pediatrics and gynecology-obstetrics in the
School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences, describes the
Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as
“ObamaCare.”

To better understand the ACA, Glick, who also has an MBA and a
faculty appointment in the UB School of Management, will hold an
early-morning Grand Rounds for UB medical students, residents,
faculty and practicing physicians titled “Obamacare: How Will
the Affordable Care Act Affect You, Your Training, Your Career and
Your Patients?”

It will be held from 6:45-8 a.m. Feb. 14 in the Swift
Auditorium, reachable through the lobby of Buffalo General Medical
Center, 100 High St., Buffalo.

The meeting also will examine how social media can help the
physician community better understand and deal with the effects of
the ACA. It is recommended that all attendees have real-time access
to the Web and to a Twitter account via laptop or mobile
device.

“The ACA is going to be a paradigm shift for every
physician in practice,” says Glick. “The careers of our
medical students and residents are going to be rocked by this. By
the time they finish their training and residencies, the ACA will
be in place. We’re all going to feel this on a daily
basis.”

Glick was motivated to hold Grand Rounds on the ACA because of
the dramatic changes going on among the medical student and
resident populations, and the realization that those changes will
be further complicated by the ACA.

“When I was in medical school in the 1970s, people went to
med school because of their passion and then picked a specialty
because of their interests,” says Glick. “Now, there
are forces, such as debt load, demographics, professionalism and
others, that are causing students and residents to make decisions
more pragmatically. They’re choosing specialties using
different considerations than we used 10, 20 or 30 years ago.

“Right now, 80 percent of residents who are finishing up
their residencies are doing specialty work,” he says.
“They are being turned away from primary care for financial,
personal and professional reasons.”

However, says Glick, the additional 30 million to 60 million
people whom the ACA will bring into the health care system will
challenge a system already seeing primary care doctor shortages in
most areas. He notes that while the ACA increases the number of
training positions for such primary care residencies as pediatrics,
internal medicine and family medicine, paradoxically most of these
trainees are doing subspecialty training and not primary care.

“They’re about to go out into this world where more
primary care doctors are needed, but what if they’re $100,000
or more in debt and they see that primary care doctors don’t
get reimbursed properly? Our students need to know what the facts
are.”

UB students, residents and faculty who plan to attend and those
who want to follow the discussion on Twitter should read background materials
recommended by Glick.

The course’s Twitter thread is being followed at
@UBSurgery. Participants can use this handle to provide input. The
course hashtag is #UBSurgery. Other relevant hashtags are
@ObamaCare, #ACA, #GME (graduate medical education), #CiM (career
in medicine), #HCR (health care reform), #HCSM (health care and
social media), #SoMe (social media), #SoMed (social media in
medical education), #advocacy and #UBSMB (UB School of Medicine and
Biomedical Sciences). Glick’s Twitter handle is
@glicklab.